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The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

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Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#561

Post by bittercynic »

jpadkins wrote: post #535
bittercynic wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a man who's never wanted kids, and is now getting to an age where it probably wouldn't be a good idea, those weren't really the big factors for me. Having a kid is just an unfathomably large commitment. If you bring a kid into the world, I believe you're responsible for creating the conditions where that kid can grow into a healthy, well adjusted adult, and that's seemed like an increasingly impossible commitment…

It's not that hard. Sorry you missed out on a wonderful thing. You are not responsible for the world or its conditions. You just have to support the kid and be a good role model, that is 95% of the job.

Don't be sorry, I got what I wanted, and am content with my life. We have to miss out one one thing to enjoy something else.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#562

Post by coryrc »

tfehring wrote: post #403
JPKab wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Only if the mothers in aggregate truly believe that their children will have good lives, then will they have them." Then please explain why birth rates throughout human history, when life was vastly more difficult and dangerous than it is now, were so much higher? Nobody had to meet this bar you set before. Let's just be honest here. There were three recent developments, all of which were, by themselves, good things…

The timing for those factors doesn’t match the timing of the fertility decline in the US. Birth control usage is slightly down since the mid 90s. Among sexually active women not trying to get pregnant, the rate has been flat since 2002. https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-use-unit... Women’s labor force participation rate peaked in the late 90s. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300002 It’s hard…

You're comparing an average, but the demographics are different. If you compare, say, native-born-white to native-born-white, they fit those inputs much closer.

Total fertility is down because a smaller fraction of the population are immigrants from Mexico and Central/South America now and those immigrants have a higher birth rate. Their children regress to the mean.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#563

Post by anal_reactor »

mjburgess wrote: post #528
Night_Thastus wrote: post #336

This is happening everywhere , including nations with great social systems/healthcare/parental leave/etc. And it happens even when nations try throwing money at the problem. While economic concerns may be worsening the issue - I don't think they're the root cause as many would like to say. I think the root cause is that we have outsmarted our biology. Once you give people education on the risks of sex and pregnancy,…

Children are pensions, that's why poorer nations have lots of children because lots are needed to look after people in their old age. Thus, many of these comments on HN and elsewhere, "make the nation better", only have led -- and will lead -- to fewer children. When the old don't need households of the young to provide for them, there won't be any. But this, and the education of women, and increasing productivity et…

You're implying that people incapable of planning next Thursday are thinking about their pensions. Poor countries reproduce a lot because they still have a lot of people functioning on the level of biological impulses rather than rational thought.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#564

Post by mothballed »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #463
WhompingWindows wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not alone, Kraig911. It's very hard to be a parent in modern society. My wife and I's friends have basically vanished from our lives, they have zero initiative or interest in coming over to see the kids or help in any way. They say they do, but they rely on us to take the initiative and make social things happen. After dozens of rejections or silence from dozens of them, it's rejection fatigue with the friends…

> Many of our child-free friends are going to go through a lot of loneliness when they're old I've seen this "kids are insurance against loneliness" logic repeated often, but I don't believe this bares out in reality. I personally know plenty of child-free older couples who remain quite happy and social. I also know plenty of parents whose kids don't speak to them anymore or whose children have lives on the other sid…

>I find this to be another under-discussed challenging of parenting: you can never even entertain the idea that "maybe this wasn't what I wanted"

Because there's no point in thinking about it. Your wife will ask if you want to leave, your children will hate you, and society will hate you, it will make you feel depressed, and meanwhile it won't accomplish anything. It's a dialogue only for yourself, once you acknowledge that, it becomes far less challenging to deal with and you can move forward with dealing with challenges in solvable ways.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#565

Post by cosmic_cheese »

tshaddox wrote: post #554
notpachet wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying it's de facto selfish to not have kids? What if someone can't have kids? In reality everyone who's thinking about having kids exists on a spectrum of what's possible: either it's going to be really easy for you (because you're Elon Musk and you don't give a fuck) or it's going to be borderline impossible (because you're infertile, or you're broke, or whatever). Just because someone looked at the odds an…

Productive conversation is infeasible with someone who interprets my position to be that it’s selfish to be unable to have children.

Not to put words in their mouth, but I think part of the poster's point is that inability is is a more complex equation than simple biological capacity. A couple who judges it economically risky or otherwise irresponsible to start a family (which represents a wide swath of the population) could for example consider themselves unable.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#566

Post by projektfu »

GoatInGrey wrote: post #470
exodys wrote: post #362

This may offend some, but I think the large amount of women joining the labor force may be a factor. American society, pre-WWII, usually had only one member of the household at work. More often than not it was the man who went to work, and the women stayed home to take care of the children. American society, pre-1930s (the Great Depression saw the rise of the female workers) was build on a one-income household. And y…

In my opinion, it's this, though I think it's a second-order effect. I believe that the issue isn't so much that women are working, but rather that there is a shortage of household labor. This labor pool is what was traditionally used for childcare needs. When you pair that labor shortage with (terrible) modern parenting standards, there just isn't enough time to raise kids without becoming a zombie. https://pbs.twim…

While I think I see myself in the chart, I am not exactly sure what it says, especially the "Controlling for children under 5" and the time.

This seems like a good place for a study using matched subjects. Do 23 year olds of a certain generation spend more time with 7 year old children than another generation? Etc., etc., then you can calculate the baseline and excess for each generation

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#567

Post by scottious »

bpt3 wrote: post #428
mountainb wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the medium is the message, the SUV communicates that there is only space for the nuclear family members, speed and comfort is of the essence, and the road is the only acceptable avenue for transportation. The sidewalks are for homeless people, jogging athletes, and eccentrics.

Oh good grief, parents with SUVs aren't that complex, and they are often purchased to carry around their kids' friends as well (negating your first point). People do what works for them within their budget, which often is a larger vehicle when you have kids. If you want to translate that as "speed and comfort is of the essence", then fine. I could say the same about someone with no kids who prefers living in a highly…

> they are often purchased to carry around their kids' friends as well

but it requires an adult to drive that SUV. Car culture has made it so kids don't have autonomy to move themselves around anymore. When I was 8 I used to be able to walk/bike around the neighborhood to see my friends. Then we moved to car-dependent suburbia and things were so much worse. Having to depend on adults to go places added a lot of friction. The end result is that we'd usually just spend a lot of time inside the house.

Just look at the dystopia we live in right now: some parents literally drive a Chevy Tahoe or equivalent SUV to school to drop their kids off. How many school-aged children can you fit into the blindspot of a car like that? Are we at all surprised that parents don't want their kids walking to school alone?

I literally have to tell my son to hold his breath as we bike by long lines of SUVs idling right next to a school

> People do what works for them within their budget, which often is a larger vehicle when you have kids

It's funny that I don't drive and I transport my 3 kids around almost exclusively by bike. Yet people who live in my neighborhood with kids insist that they need an SUV for all trips. (yes, I can afford any car if I wanted one).

I even organize bike trips so other parents can bring their kids to events by bike so we don't need to get cars involved.

I think we've fooled ourselves into thinking we need cars far more than we actually do.

Yes, there are dystopian places that are completely car-dependent and don't even have sidewalks, but even in places that aren't like that people still insist that they need cars for everything.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#568

Post by appointment »

mamonster wrote: post #138
dv_dt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting thing is this is Spain's second wave of doing this, and the economic studies on the first wave of it showed visibly positive results. Spain's economy moved in growth, and with a size larger than many other European nations in similar background conditions of flat to negative population growth, but tighter immigration allowances.

Horrible fiscal ticking time bomb that ignores the fact that regularization means naturalization over the next 10-15 years and so access to EU healthcare system. The biggest drag on government budgets in EU are socialized healthcare and retirement costs. At this point we know healthcare costs are severely backloaded, with most spending coming out of the last 10 years of someone's life. Regularizing now allows them to…

How much do 0-15 year olds contribute to the economy?

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#569

Post by alephnerd »

boelboel wrote: post #547
alephnerd wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US isn't that attractive for white collar Latin Americans either. For example, the kind of Mexican who can get a job at Google MTV or ATX would also be able to work at Reddit CDMX for around $80k-$100k TC or McKinsey CDMX for $130k-160k TC. Even for blue collar immigrants working undocumented in the US, a large portion were formerly lower middle class before the states they lived in either failed (eg. Venezuela)…

I find it a much more conscious choice for high paid immigrants. They can either live closely with their family, with the added bonus they basically live like a 'king' or they can move countries to live relatively wealthy lives in a new country. Living in the US has many advantages but I feel like a lot of them matter more for offspring. More safety besides wealthy pockets in their home country and a more 'average' l…

> But with changing politics I imagine even many of these advantages are less certain

That plays some part but in most conversations I've had with Indian and Chinese nationals, the bigger issue for them was that it would take them decades to naturalize in the US. It's not worth spending your entire career and starting a family at the mercy of an employer.

Re: The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline

#570

Post by [deleted] »

somenameforme wrote: post #476
dh2022 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$6,000 / month in daycare for 4 kids? You have a sweet deal my friend. At the daycare in my neighborhood this does not cover even 2 kids : https://www.kidspaceseattle.org/enrollment - click on Tuition link at the bottom and weep.

Those prices are weird. Why would somebody ever pay that much rather than just hire a private nanny?

[deleted]
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